Sarah Palin's tea baggers are ready to give the Presidency to her, even as they don't seem to have a clue what her policies actually are. Go figure. Kudos to Chase Whiteside and Erick Stoll of New Left Media for telling the story of these folks --- as we strongly encouraged others to do in our own not-dissimilar film, Rise of the Tea Bags --- at a Going Rogue book signing event recently in Columbus, OH, even if they're a bit less "confrontational" than we were...

i am a few days behind in my bradblog reading...but i gotta say i am thrilled that peops are starting to get this.....i am refering to richard hayes phillips "impossible numbers" article...here is a quote that is easy to understand and it shows what happens across the country when electronic devices "spit out" election results.........In Canton's 7th district, the certified results show a total of 148 ballots cast. The results of those votes were counted as 88 votes for Owens, 11 votes for Scozzafava, and 80 votes for Hoffman. The problem is that these numbers add up to 179 votes counted for the candidates, and there were only 148 ballots cast; St. Lawrence County certified these numbers to the state as accurate with the number of 'blank' ballots reported as -31.

i would apoligize for being off topic but...this kind of counting is the only way palin would ever stand a chance in winning any election

Do you not feel like a complete moron yet? Your total miss on the Sparkman suicide belies intelligent, thoughtful writing. Your inability to retract your hatred spewing further shows you to be an idiot.

(#2) ? Really? O! I hope to what's left of my belief in anything that they can hear you,(read: read you without permanent brain freeze) In any case, no one could be a more patient and suitable sub teach. Hope the rowdy, special needs class behaves for you and does not cause any unnecessary skin punctures.

Karen - the NY 23 Richard Hays Phillips / Bev Harris article is getting some play - some of us double posting it to our echo chambers of social networking sites (as I encourage others here to do with Brad's article when it's up. And Digg it and buzz it up and reddit it and drop kick and tattle-feed and thumb-rate it, or what have you.)

OnTpc: Glad to have the opportunity to tell Brad how brill-yant and culturally important those RISE OF THE TEABAGS videos are. I have sent them to anyone I ever even sort of knew and/or almost slept with. Pitch perfect, hee-laryous, and enormously cathartic for the rational among us with real angst about their fake angst. I'd echo all the other readers who recommended you do more such video - your style is refreshing / such smart, natural responses. Not every (blogger) can do that.

I use the above video links as smart-weapons - rebuttal to a million teabag morons on other sites who unwittingly give it great set up with statements such as:

"Funny how when liberals question Bush, it's because they're so brilliant. But when Teabaggers question Obama, we're all idiots! I WONDER WHY THAT PERCEPTION EXISTS!!!!"

I just whip out my link to your video: "Hmmm. Dunno TruckNutz007. Maybe 'cuz of this?"

Thanks a million for all you do, Brad.
Looking forward to the article, and hoping that those videos go viral.

When you say "Sarah Palin's tea baggers are ready to give the Presidency to her, even as they don't seem to have a clue what her policies actually are," you touch on a basic difference in paradigm that we need to remember: most conservatives support people who seem to be like them, not people who know how to do anything or espouse anything. Pure identity politics. That's what got GWB enough votes to steal 2 elections...

Jeff Barnes - Good to see Malkin's minions are still out doing her bidding without bothering to examine any actual facts. When I've got something you feel needs "retraction" (or, even any of that "hatred spewing" you ironically reference), I'm sure you'll share it with me. Until then, my response to dear, sad, desperate, so-often-embarrassingly-wrong Ms. Malkin is here.

Jeannie Dean - "TruckNutz007"

Suzan - You're welcome! As soon as I come up with anything to run for, I'll let ya know where you can vote!

Sarah Palin dropped out of a 5k race on Thanksgiving Day in Kennewick, Wash. The former vice presidential candidate and Alaska Governor quit the race because she wanted to avoid the crowds that were waiting for her at the end, according to The Tri-Cities Herald.

Palin was 1 of about 3,000 participants. The paper reported that her presence drew a "mass of onlookers." Palin announced that she would be running the race on Twitter.

There's a sentiment from many smart people here, that the teabaggers are a "distraction". The implications seem to be that "distractions" shouldn't be covered. My feelings on this, is that these "distractions" are more dangerous when ignored. If you don't point out that these teabaggers are dangerous, in that they can be easily manipulated by the "men behind the curtain", astroturfers or whatever you want to call them...David Rockefeller, Bush/Cheney whatever...if you think these dangerous things you call "distractions" should be ignored, ignore them at your own peril! When the next president/VP are Sarah Palin/Michele Bachmann, because WE ignored these "petty distractions", you'll find out!

In my humble opinion, it is important to point out dangerous, stupid people, because YOU will suffer for it. I will suffer for it. Don't ignore it!

In 2000, we ignored these "distractions" and suffered through 8 years of Bush/Cheney. They Monica Lewisky'd Bill Clinton. Now they're "teabagging" Obama. Go ahead! Ignore it! Say hello to president Sarah Palin in 2012!

Probably the most under-represented sector of our society is the real conservatives... and I can say they aren't any happier with this circus than the real liberals... who aren't much better represented than the poor ignored conservatives. The noise makers, these dangerous wingnut assholes are a ridiculously small percentage of the electorate, some paid and most used to megaphone something that serves only that tenth of one percent who get the lion's share of our wealth, the world's wealth. I have never said to ignore them. I have said you, and others, are being distracted by them to help keep you from being effective against hugely greater threats to America.

Let me be graphic about it. I'm sure even Dr. Tiller would agree that his murder is not even part of a percent as awful as the loss of our Constitution... America the torturers... America the civilization gobblers... America, land of the enslaved and home of the homeless.

Let me be even more graphic about it. I think almost everyone would agree that using our energy directly against the fatsos pulling the strings would be a lot more effective than going postal over the prostitutes paid, or the dupes duped, by those fatsos to troll for president assassinating patsy material. The hitch is that the fatsos cause pain for everyone who irks them... while their whores and dupes are just grist for endless energy-wasting scandal.

They're keeping us busy winning popularity contests over the cleverest dis words against their rubes and butt boys, and that seems to be just fine by us... lets us vent our wrath instead of use it where it might get us hurt.

All these supposedly too-dangerous-to-ignore types are giving the Democrats political cover for doing exactly as they are told by bankers and corporate big boys. They're being made to seem like some sort of real force because they're all the fatsos will let be covered on the MSM.

THERE ARE OCEANS OF CONSERVATIVES AND LIBERALS WHO WANT OUR COUNTRY BACK, WHO WANT SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE, WHO WANT OUT OF ALL OUR MILITARY ADVENTURES, WHO WANT CIRCUS MACABRE TO VANISH FROM THE PUBLIC STAGE FOREVER.

All these jackass polemics, our tribal hatefests, are doing is helping to bring us all down... and somehow this has been made to seem more appealing to us than doing the right thing... sort of like Obama, only on a wider scale.

The wingnuts are dangerous en masse. I suspect there are more than we think, though less than the Mouth Piece Media would have us believe. Certainly the Mouth Piece Media is doing its utmost to swell the ranks, making wingnuttiness seem more ... well... mainstream.

Clearly fighting and hating or even trying to persuade individual wingnuts is a lot like attacking individual ants. You have to get the queen or the colony will just keep coming back.

I believe you can't let the lies stand. Videos like these are educational and they may combat the growth of wingnuts.

Hating or mocking individual wingnuts: distraction.

Showing up the empty beliefs of wingnuts: useful, and may slow wingnut growth.

Agreed they provide cover. However I also believe you can't ignore them and hope they will go away on their own. To go after them and their queen, we have to go after the Mouth Piece Media who love to encourage and support the wingnut colony (and every other fat cat in or behind the government). They are the biggest propaganda makers and manipulators going.

That's why the tea baggers and other manipulated puppets are screaming freedom of speech when we go after Fox and other networks for their lies and propaganda. That's why we have to go after them.

Yawn. So some people had trouble expressing reasons on why they supported Sarah Palin. In case you weren't paying attention, other people have been caught on tape giving less-than-stellar answers on why they supported Barack Obama for president.

My favorite audio was the woman in Florida who said she wouldn't have to worry about paying her rent anymore if Obama was elected. "If I help him, he's going to help me." Wow. Brilliant, huh?

But hey, whip out those 29.9% credit cards (if you still have one) and party on up, go buy Palin's book, and pick up a six-pac, a sharpie and few cardboard signs for the Teabag express.

What get's me, is the actual TEA PARTY in American history. (you know the event where tea was actually tossed in the ocean) The people KNEW why they were tossing that god damned tea in the ocean because of taxation without representation, but it's clear corporate media has every so dumbed down now, people don't know a damned thing about any issue, and when they DO poke through that hurdle, they STILL can't tell if it's truth or lies.

Bottom Line: Don't blame the tea bagger for being uninformed.

(and FYI, NO this doesn't make me support tea baggers, although I do support their right to protest)

Being uninformed is a method to having a fascist electronic dictatorship. And that's spooky.

#18, I don't think having oil conglomerates backing Ms. Palin would be a detriment in their eyes. Drill baby drill! The tea baggers are more than willing to sell our government to "private enterprise". Sadly it already has been. Goldman Sachs is laughing all the way to itself.

When you see teabaggers saying things like: "Keep government out of my medicare", what I think is that these people are people who don't get out and sit and watch only FOX "news". And FOX "news" finally prompted these people to get out and do something, and they did. It's the only thing I can think of. I'd like to see a study of these "teabaggers", and see if this is the first time they've ever gone out and protested. Some "stats" on the teabaggers. And then how many watch only FOX "news".

1. Jeff Barnes #4. I think, "Do you feel like a complete moron yet?" is perhaps the greatest conversation starter I've ever heard. And I'm going to use it--when I'm in a receiving line at weddings. When I'm going to a candidates' forum and am called on to ask a question. At Christmas dinner, etc. Really, I can't think of a single situation in life, whether surrounded by friends or enemies, in which starting off with,"Do you feel like a complete moron yet?" wouldn't bear bushels of stimulating conversational fruit.

2. This may be crazy but, there was a poignant moment for me in this latest video which I thought was brilliant though it made me want to weep. When the person talks about not wanting to pay their taxes so earnestly, I really felt for her(think it was a her). And I wondered if it would be possible to take someone with that viewpoint and explain to them the possibility of a world in which paying more taxes meant you were financially more secure. I've been told I'm something of a dreamer. Still, I can't help but wonder if that would be possible.

What I said was accurate, Friedman. It doesn't matter who the political figure is; there will always be some people who voice their support for that candidate in a thoroughly knuckle-headed manner. That doesn't disqualify the candidate. Understood?

#32, Those people are so stupid they don't know that she is stupid, in the uninformed sense of the word. If they were smart, and fact checked things, they would not be supporting Sarah Palin. This is what I learned from the video. They identify with her on a personal level, and don't know a damn thing about her. They LIKE her. That's it. They are total fuckwads, and don't care, and think they are right in being fuckwads. My favorite part of the whole video was the guy who said, "Being right means not having to compromise. You don't have to compromise if you are right." Unfortunately, if you are wrong in this situation, being uncompromising makes you a misinformed dildo with a bad attitude and a penchant for making really large mistakes.

Yep, folks, there you have radical lefty standard operating procedure. Hurl a bunch of name-calling, insults and a sprinkling of F-bombs, and thusly proclaim that you have spoken truth to power. In reality, all you have done is increase the amount of methane gas.

1) That was just me that said that, not the entire progressive movement.\

2) I guess you are unable to read between the, "F-bombs," as you put it.\

3) I was talking to you, not to anyone in power.\

4) The point was, if one doesn't know the truth, even if one thinks they do, they are not equipped to make any kind of critical decisions based on the information that they have, because it is WRONG.\

5) I also implied that Palin was nothing more than a cult of personality, with her celebrity far outweighing any other kind of qualifications she might (or might not) have. It is ironic that it was Obama that was actually accused of this during the election.\

God bless Sarah Palin and may she lead all the Republicans into even further obscurity and irrelevance. I actually hope that doesn't happen, though, because a healthy democracy needs at least two viable parties to compete against one another.\

6) Let me get this straight, all you saw was, "name-calling, insults and F-bombs?"\

7) Then you not-so-cleverly suggested I was adding fuel to a potentially explosive situation (no doubt actually caused by the less stable being whipped into a dangerous paranoid frenzy by the likes of Malkin, Hannity, Limbaugh, and Beck.) Oh but it will be my fault when some crazy person freaks out, because I cussed, right? Certainly not because they have been basically mistakenly labeling Obama as some sort of terrorist hell-bent on the destruction of the U.S. since he went into office. Give me a break.\
\
P.S. Have a nice evening.\
-- Your Friend

I'm with damail here. I stumbled onto this site while reading another.
As damail pointed out....When the primaries were going on I watched women swooning to get near Obama. When asked what they liked about his policies, they would giggle, roll eyes, grin and say "I dunno". There were many of these interviews. I can't recall one answer that made a lick of sense.
Even with Hillary...they'd ask the women why they liked Hillary, what policies....."Err, Umm,...funny stuff.